Donald Trump, Justin Fairfax, Grammy Awards: Your Monday Briefing

We start today with a breakdown in border security talks and the winners of last night’s Grammy Awards.

Image

Migrants tried to cross into El Paso, at the U.S. border with Mexico, this month.CreditJose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

New shutdown looms as border talks break down

Efforts to reach a border security deal bogged down on Sunday, less than a week before parts of the federal government are again set to run out of money.

The details: The breakdown appears to center on Democratic demands for a limit on the number of unauthorized immigrants already in the U.S. who could be detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. That could force the Trump administration to focus on immigrants with criminal records, rather than on broader sweeps.

Looking ahead: President Trump is scheduled to hold a rally tonight in El Paso to build support for his proposed border wall. Officials in the West Texas city dispute the president’s assertion that border fencing has reduced violent crime there.

According to a transcript of a hearing in Washington, the prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, discussed contacts between President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and a Russian associate. Mr. Mueller’s team says that Mr. Manafort misled them about those discussions, and when pressed by the judge about why it mattered, Mr. Weissmann said, “This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel’s office is investigating.”

Background: Prosecutions by the special counsel have skirted the question of whether there was some kind of deal between Russia and Mr. Trump’s campaign. Persuading the U.S. to ease or end sanctions has been a primary goal of Moscow. Mr. Trump has dismissed Mr. Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt.”

Virginia lawmaker takes a step to impeach No. 2 official

A draft resolution sent to a state House committee on Sunday directs lawmakers to determine whether the sexual assault accusations facing Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax constitute grounds for impeachment.

Mr. Fairfax has denied accusations from two women and released a statement over the weekend calling for an investigation and “due process.”

Some Democrats are wary of impeaching Mr. Fairfax, who is black, without taking action against the governor and attorney general, who are white and have resisted calls to step down after acknowledging wearing blackface in the 1980s.

If you have 8 minutes, this is worth it

A princess who tried to escape

Image

In a video she secretly recorded last year, the adult daughter of the ruler of Dubai described a life of rigid restrictions and stunted hopes in the United Arab Emirates: “Especially if you’re a female, your life is so disposable.”

In March, the princess known as Sheikha Latifa, pictured above left with her trainer, announced that she had left Dubai “for good.” But she was soon captured at sea and forcibly taken back. This is the story of her short-lived escape and the video that has reminded the world of the few freedoms allotted to women in the region.

Here’s what else is happening

Splitting the bill for troops: South Korea agreed on Sunday to increase its contribution for the cost of the U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula. The deal resolves a dispute that had raised fears that President Trump might propose a reduced presence as a bargaining chip during his next summit meeting with the North Korean leader.

Pacific Northwest snowstorm: Seattle has already had its snowiest February since 1949, and several more storms are threatening the region.

Snapshot: Above, Lindsey Vonn finished third on Sunday in the final race of her career, in Sweden. The 34-year-old American skier won an unprecedented 20 season-long World Cup discipline and overall titles from 2008 to 2016, as well as three Olympic medals. We selected photographs from her career.

What we’re reading: This essay on digital postpartum loneliness in Wired. Jenna Wortham, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, writes: “Instagram, in many ways, is an alternate reality. Pieces like these are essential for getting a grip on the projections and narratives that social media fosters.”

Smarter Living: If you have a chance to spoil yourself, try spending to enhance where you spend the most time. A cruise can be wonderful, but a great mattress or a comfortable pillow offers six to eight hours of pampering every night.

In Jackson’s 1988 autobiography, which shares its name with the famous move, he describes the moonwalk as “a ‘popping’ type of thing that black kids had created dancing on street corners in the ghetto.”

The moonwalk had been performed for decades by a range of entertainers (albeit often by a more literal name, the backslide). But it was the King of Pop who would be remembered, as one dance critic put it, “coasting backward across the stage, step by gliding step, as if on a cushion of air.”

Thank youTo Eleanor Stanford, James K. Williamson and John Dorman for the break from the news. Chris Stanford went overtime to write today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Today’s episode is about President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, who is preventing millions of dollars’ worth of aid from entering the country.• Here’s today’s mini crossword puzzle, and a clue: The “turf” part of “surf and turf” (5 letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The Times announced its inaugural class of newsroom fellows last week. Twenty-two were selected from more than 5,000 applicants.

Chris Stanford is based in London and writes the U.S. version of the Morning Briefing. He also compiles a weekly news quiz. He was previously a producer for the desktop home page and mobile site, helping to present The New York Times’s news report to readers. Before joining The Times in 2013, he was an editor and designer at The Washington Post and other news organizations. @stanfordc